Wasted Attention

Part of

Dynamic Work Design Patterns

Key Points

Well-defined work managed through too much collaboration and meetings. Results in overhead, little output, and team frustration.

The Problem: Work that should be efficient becomes drowning in meetings → Constant status updates and reviews → People have no time for actual work

The Solution: Recognize well-defined work → shift it back to Factory Mode.

Details

Wasted Attention is an anti-pattern that occurs when well-defined, routine work is organized like Studio Mode – with constant meetings, endless reviews, and excessive collaboration. This creates organizational overhead that prevents real work from happening.

How Does Wasted Attention Emerge?

Typical Scenario:

Manager wants more visibility and control
Introduces daily status meetings
Adds review sessions before each step
Requests "everyone" in meetings for transparency
Work gets interrupted constantly
Very little actual productive work happens
Timeline slips, creating pressure for more meetings

Symptoms of Wasted Attention

"We're always in meetings" (or in chat threads)
Status meetings that discuss trivial details
Everyone invited to every discussion
Difficulty finding uninterrupted focus time
People work longer hours but produce less
Team frustration and burnout increasing
Decision-making becomes slow despite frequent meetings

Why Does This Happen?

Often emerges from:

Fear of losing control → more meetings demanded
Visibility anxiety → everything must be discussed
Confusion about "Agile" → "lots of meetings = Agile"
Project pressure → more oversight seems like solution
Lack of trust → "let's just review everything"

Practical Examples

Mistake: Daily Standup for Well-Defined Work

Problem: Routine order processing in 15 daily meetings
Impact: 1h daily coordination for 30 min work
Solution: Factory Mode with clear metrics, weekly check

Mistake: Everything Needs Team Consensus

Problem: Approval meetings for every decision
Impact: Simple decisions take days
Solution: Clear decision authority in Factory Mode

Mistake: Multiple Status Updates

Problem: Morning standup + afternoon update + weekly review
Impact: Team spends 6h/week reporting, 2h actual work
Solution: One clear metric, less frequent review

The Solution: Recognize and Shift Back

Recognition Signs for Over-Collaboration:

Can people work 2 hours without being interrupted?
Are meetings discussing execution details that should be standard?
Does it take more time to discuss work than to do it?
Are people frustrated by "too many meetings"?
Is the work actually well-defined and routine?

If yes → Back to Factory Mode!

Practical Measures:

Identify what work is actually well-defined
Move it to Factory Mode with clear standards
Reduce meeting frequency appropriately
Use metrics instead of status meetings
Trust people to do defined work
Save collaboration for actual problems

Wasted Attention in Dynamic Work Design

Wasted Attention is the opposite of good Dynamic Work Design. It occurs when you don't properly distinguish between well-defined and ambiguous tasks.

Better: Keep well-defined work efficient, only collaborate when necessary.

This pattern is one of the two "poles" of the Axis of Frustration (the other pole being Ineffective Iterations).

Common Mistakes

Confusing "visibility" with "constant meetings"
Thinking "agile" means "always collaborating"
Using meetings instead of clear standards
Not trusting people to do routine work

Better: Clear standards, less meetings, trust people.

More about this

Dynamic Work Design was developed by Nelson P. Repenning and Donald C. Kieffer at MIT Sloan. Start with the foundational article "A New Approach to Designing Work" (2018) and watch "Unlock Your Organization's Full Potential with Dynamic Work Design" by Don Kieffer to see practical applications.